Saturday, November 24, 2012

The Military-Industrial Complex Still Needs to Be Pared Down to Size!

The "fiscal cliff" approaches and all manner of Repukes are running for cover even as Ben Bernanke also seeks to stoke the hysteria (reminding legislators recently of the nearing due date). In this milieu it is well to ponder the basis of Naomi Klein's "disaster capitalism". In her book 'THE SHOCK DOCTRINE' Ms. Klein reminds us that the "Chicago school" of faux economists - led by Milton Friedman- have been using multiple shocks or intermittent crises (military and non-military or economic) over the past 30 years to try to turn our world into a capitalist pig whore house - with all the takers on the side of the plutocrats. In one chapter she coins the term "disaster capitalism" and analogized it to the electric shocks delivered via torture, say to a person's head & genitals. The shocked victims become so mentally incoherent that they are ready to accept just about anything demanded of them.

You would think that most sensible people would understand and see this, and hence that the solution of any spending problems is really cutting the military -Pentagon budget down by one- half but evidently not. Seems some brain dead goobers on the Right, on their blogs, actually want to see nothing done. These brain- damaged fools (probably after having their brains beat in by some drill sergeant) actually want to assert that we - who served our country in other ways (as in Peace Corps) - have no right to speak out on the disposition of precious tax dollars. They assert we are n'er do wells who "never held a job in our lives" (transl.: they are jealous of the jobs we had compared to theirs) and "never served a day in the military" (transl.: we never scrubbed out pans and pots from a military mess hall like they had to). These idiot fools can't seem to see their own interests, even as they yap about "socialists" and "commie" takers. This as they themselves wait for handouts compliments of the VA for some "disability" (probably from a DI kicking them in the balls and neutering them). Of course this confirms the stats that show all the "takers" of the federal tax dollar are in the Red States - with the Blue coughing up endless $$$. The little fuckers ought to be grateful, but they aren't.

Anyway, let's be sure we grasp what's going on: The Pentagon's money grubbers will not go quietly into the sequestration night, as they have loads of Repuke rats ready to fight against even a pitiful $600b cut over 10 years, when it ought to be about $4 trilllion. What fuels this Beast that's laying waste to the land and exacerbating political polarization - even as the wealthy get to keep on getting their tax cuts, while the military-Pentagon can continue to avoid "pay-go" in any manner, shape or form? The short answer is MONEY. Follow the toxic money trail and you will find who is benefitting from this cancerous malignancy Ike warned us about, and who are the agents for spreading the malignancy.

At the very source of this toxic and malignant sewer of influence one finds lobbyists, more than one thousand one hundred of them representing 375 clients - mostly profiteering defense contractors. This is according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CPR). In 2010 alone, these vermin spent $145.9 million to influence our politics - skewed as it already is toward legalized bribery. In fact, nearly $24 million was contributed in 2008 to the campaigns of political candidates.

Nor must one accept here the canard that it was exclusively the Republicans who profited most, as the pro-war, pro-military "daddy" party. (The Dems depicted as the "mommy" party, e.g. for sustaining social insurance benefits etc.) According to the CPR's statistics, in 2010 the Democrats actually received 54% of all the lobbying largesse, the Repubs, 46%. No wonder, looking at this in retrospect, we see people like Leon Panetta fighting like junkyard dogs to try to protect the Pentagon's spoils from taxpayers.

At the same time, we're being informed almost daily that the forthcoming sequestration will "cut military spending to the bone". Actually, this is a lie, a bold-faced lie! Most of the "cuts" are not in absolute terms, but rather in the rate of expected Pentagon spending increases. Even a 15% cut in military spending will therefore return the bloated Pentagon budget to what it was in 2007 and still consume 40 percent of all military spending on Earth! This, despite the fact the Pentagon's budget has more than doubled in the past decade and will add on another additional $6 trillion of deficits by 2021.

When will Americans wake up to this and start fighting for their nation? (I can understand stupid ass Johnny Rebs who proclaim 'the South will rise again' to be indolent and inactive - Rebs have always extolled military first and foremost, but not the rest of us). That must begin with demanding our own representatives cease propping up this bloated empire and turning us into a 3rd world Banana Republic.

As a cautionary tale of the type of rhetoric we face, one need look no further than Joe Liebermann (purported to caucus with the Dems) who openly said in August, 2011:

"We can't protect entitlements and also have the national defense we need to protect us in a dangerous world"

Translation:

'We can't be expected to deny our lobbyists for the defense industry who contribute to our campaign funds, or our good friends, the defense contractors who keep them and us in business. Let the seniors and others go suck salt. They can afford to die!"

And so this little douchebag prick endorsed that we cut Medicare and Social Security, and to punctuate that, immediately proceeded to co-author a bill (with another asshole, Tom Coburn of OK) to raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67, thereby tossing 11 million more people into poverty. But these pricks don't care! All they care about is getting their precious campaign contributions from the vipers who control most of the nation's purse strings.

It's time now to use the coming sequestration to go forward with the planned cuts and then MORE - if the asswad Repugs demand more spending cuts. Let's be clear here that on account of the Budget Control Act passed last year there's already been $1.5 TRILLION in planned cuts to domestic social programs. Meanwhile, the re-turds haven't surrendered a dime in terms of new taxes and keep protecting their precious military. My point is if new spending cuts are needed, then gouge them out of the fat MIC not seniors, and the indigent.

Now, let's recall some famous words from Dwight D. Eisenhower (in his 'farewell address' in January, 1961). Ike was one of the foremost generals of WWII and a Republican President from 1952-1960.

"Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States cooperations -- corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Later, in an April, 1953 address, Ike put the issue in an economic context:

“The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school for more than 30 cities, …two finely equipped hospitals, or 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million barrels of wheat. We pay for a new destroyer with new homes that could have housed 8,000 people…Under a cloud of threatening war it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

We need to process the above, and be reminded that in today's economic context, the costs to our domestic security are even more as we sacrifice to the gluttonous military -industrial pigs, their lobbyist sycophants and their brain dead worshippers and enablers- mostly Southern Reb, pro -Secession symps and bible- punching morons. (Another reason why many of us, at one level, wish these assholes would secede!)

Keep all that in mind, and further that the 2012 federal budget allocates just under $806 BILLION to the military - which as one wit put it "buys a lot of horses and bayonets".

But in a more righteous context, consider that empire-building waste and the fact that the American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that $322 billion is needed now to repair the nation's public schools and $930 billion to repair roads and bridges. We now spend only a fraction of a percent of GDP on our infrastructure while China spends 9%. Process THAT! Then ask, WHO - which nation- has the greater domestic security.

As for the Johnny Reb symps and suckups who defend the mammoth military let them go suck shit. They aren't worth an ounce of doggie lickspittle and hell, if they want to secede so badly I will fucking FIND them a place to secede to! Maybe that dumpster-created island off India's coast loaded with industrial waste from the U.S.

About Me

Specialized in space physics and solar physics, developed first astronomy curriculum for Caribbean secondary schools, has written thirteen books - the most recent:Fundamentals of Solar Physics. Also: Modern Physics: Notes, Problems and Solutions;:'Beyond Atheism, Beyond God', Astronomy & Astrophysics: Notes, Problems and Solutions', 'Physics Notes for Advanced Level&#39, Mathematical Excursions in Brane Space, Selected Analyses in Solar Flare Plasma Dynamics; and 'A History of Caribbean Secondary School Astronomy'. It details the background to my development and implementation of the first ever astronomy curriculum for secondary schools in the Caribbean.